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<H2 property="dc:title"><A
title="Hundreds of Argentina Walmart Employees Went on Strike in Solidarity With US Co-Workers"
href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/171903/hundreds-argentina-walmart-employees-went-strike-solidarity-us-co-workers">Hundreds
of Argentina Walmart Employees Went on Strike in Solidarity With US
Co-Workers</A></H2>
<DIV class=byline><A href="http://www.thenation.com/authors/josh-eidelson"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>Josh Eidelson</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> <SPAN
class=timestamp><ABBR class=published title=2012-12-21T18:26:53-18000>on
December 21, 2012 - 6:26 PM ET</ABBR></SPAN></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV class=content>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>About 1,000 Walmart workers in Argentina staged brief
strikes last Friday, a union official told <EM>The Nation</EM> this
week.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>Rubén Cortina, the president of the Americas division of
the global union federation UNI, said workers struck in close to ten regions of
Argentina, and “almost half of the stores had some type of strike during the
day.” He said those strikes generally lasted between one and three hours, as
workers walked off the job to hold demonstrations inside or outside their store
during part of their scheduled shift, then returned to work.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>Cortina said that it appears that “about 3,000 workers”
in Argentina participated in some form of action as part of UNI’s December 14
</STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/171770/global-day-action-hits-walmart-10-countries"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>Global Day of Action</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> to
support organizing efforts by the OUR Walmart campaign in the United States
(that campaign is the topic of </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.thenation.com/article/171868/great-walmart-walkout"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>my feature</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> in this week’
issue of <EM>The Nation</EM>). The day included actions in ten countries, but
Argentina is the only one where organizers are reporting that workers went on
strike.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>“Our main goal,” said Cortina, “is to try to call
attention to the company, that they should sit down and negotiate with unions in
the United States.” Cortina said that many customers who saw the workers
demonstrating showed “solidarity attitudes, singing with us, and making signals
with our hands.” “The exercise of the right to strike,” he added, “is a very
common thing here…. it’s not something strange for us.”</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>Walmart did not respond to a Thursday request for
comment.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>Last week’s Day of Action was followed by protests this
week greeting a ship that activists said was unloading Walmart goods from
Bangladesh, first </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.thenation.com/blog/171823/activists-stage-block-boat-protest-against-ship-bearing-walmart-goods-bangladesh"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>on Tuesday</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> at the Port
of Newark, and then </STRONG></FONT><A
href="http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20121220/PC16/121229910"><FONT
size=4><STRONG>yesterday</STRONG></FONT></A><FONT size=4><STRONG> at the Port of
Charleston, where union members refused for an hour to unload the
cargo.</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>“When Walmart first came” to Argentina, said Cortina,
“they were terrible.” Early on, he said, “workers burned tires and broke
windows.” To win union recognition, Cortina said, “We had to fight tough in
every place and try to convince [Walmart] that they had to talk to us, and they
had to adjust their way of doing things.” To this day, he added, “they are not
the same as the other retailers. They are tougher and that makes us deal with
them sometimes tougher.”</STRONG></FONT></P>
<P><FONT size=4><STRONG>But Cortina expressed confidence that, with
international pressure, Walmart would eventually change its labor relations in
the United States. “At the end of the day,” he said, “the world is going to
advance on organizing workers. We are going to advance on organizing
workers</STRONG></FONT></P></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>